California Water Politics: A New Trickle of Optimism : Encouraging developments on Mono Lake, MWD election and other issues

Modern Californians take water for granted. We turn on our faucets and assume it will be there, despite the fact that most of this state’s 30 million-plus people live in deserts or other water-scarce regions. Last week some important news stories reminded us not to take such an overconfident attitude toward a precious commodity.

In chronological order:

--Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power announced Monday that it has ended a 15-year fight with environmental groups over scenic Mono Lake. The result is a permanent reduction in the amount of water the DWP can take from this ecologically damaged lake in the eastern Sierra. In exchange the DWP gets $36 million from the Legislature to develop alternative water sources, primarily a big reclamation project in the Sepulveda basin.

--Tuesday the Metropolitan Water District, the giant public agency that buys water wholesale for communities from Ventura to San Diego, averted a potentially divisive fight over election of a new chairman. Environmental activist Tim Brick of Pasadena withdrew his candidacy in favor of John Foley of the Moulton Niguel Water District in Orange County. Although Foley represents what environmentalists call California’s “traditional” water bureaucracy, they don’t expect him to change the pro-environment policies now favored at the MWD.

--Also Tuesday, MWD directors voted to temporarily withhold a scheduled $50-million payment to the state. That money would help pay for Southern California’s share of water next year from the State Water Project, the massive series of dams and aqueducts that helps bring water from Northern California across the Tehachapi Mountains. State officials had earlier announced they would dock cities some of their 1994 water allotment so farmers in the Central Valley could have a bigger share. The MWD wants to pressure Sacramento to reconsider.

--Thursday the Clinton Administration proposed water quality rules for San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that would reduce the salinity of those bodies of water and also protect several endangered species. Once they go into effect those new rules could dramatically reduce the amount of water flowing from Northern to Southern California, mainly through the Central Valley Project, another big series of dams and canals, this one built by the federal government.

The common thread of optimism that runs through all these developments is that while each could have been a source of major controversy, all occurred without the angry rhetoric that often has characterized the politics of California water.

The positive nature of the DWP’s Mono Lake deal is self-evident--a classic win-win situation. The atmosphere at the MWD suggests that no matter who holds the chairman’s post the agency will continue to move forward in trying to develop new, environmentally safe water sources. Even the MWD’s threatened standoff with the state over water allocations and the state’s quarrel with the federal rules for the delta may not be as serious as they at first appear. Although complaining that the federal rules are too stringent, Gov. Pete Wilson ordered state water officials to collaborate with their federal counterparts to come up with mutually acceptable compromise regulations. So with decent rain and snowfall this winter, and continued conservation, the squeeze on water supplies from the new delta rules should not be onerous.

It’s possible that Wilson wants to give more water to farmers than to cities next year so that agricultural interests won’t raise too big a fuss over the tough new delta regulations. Because farmers use about 70% of California’s fresh water supply, they are going to take the biggest hit no matter how water regulations change to benefit the environment. If farmers need time and flexibility to adjust, fine--so long as agriculture accepts the growing statewide consensus that the days of cheap (i.e., subsidized) water are over and recognizes that we all must start using it more efficiently.

Maybe, just maybe, Californians are getting their collective act together and making political water wars (north versus south, urban versus rural, preservation versus development) a thing of the past. We can hope, can’t we?